Boxing with Khan(s)

So I purchased my first ever booster box recently, of the newly released Khans or Tarkir set. Up until now I have purchased boosters, Fat Packs and even gone halves on a booster box but this was my first ever solo purchase of a box, and I did it with great excitement. This would be my first chance to keep all the mythics and rares myself, and there would be 36 fresh boosters to crack... what's not to like???

I hadn't really read up much on the Khans set before I got the box, mainly to preserve the sense of mystery in the new cards when I opened them, but I had read about Wizards of the Coast changing how Standard was going to work with fair warning before Khans was released so I knew what to expect there. As I play a mixture of different formats, the changes to Standard didn't seem so bad to me, and keeping it fresh every 18 months seems like a step in the right direction. It's not like I lose the use of the cards when they rotate out, I have other formats I can play them in.

I collected the box from Nebula Custom Gaming and sat down for a while to start cracking boosters, as I had a little time to kill, and was too excited to wait (despite being a grown man I retain my childlike excitement at new toys it seems). My excitement was sustained by opening my first two packs and pulling a foil rare and then a foil mythic (for a total of 4 rares and mythics from 2 packs).
Narset, Enlightened Master in foil rather complemented Jeskai Ascendancy in foil rather well I thought, and certainly made me want to crack more open. After cracking a few more open, and discussing with Lee the prospect of some swaps (I would have loved to have gotten hold of Sorin, Solemn Visitor off of him but it was promised to someone else) I had gotten a couple of rare fetchlands (which are very much this set's cash cards) but needed to go and collect my brother, so had to delay opening the rest.

Later on, as I was opening the remaining two thirds of the box, I was a little disappointed. I had gotten a mythic and a foil rare in the opening two but with 8 packs left to go had failed to open any other mythics. Sure I had grabbed a total of 5 fetchlands, and had gotten some really interesting looking cards, but come on, everyone loves a mythic! I need not have worried it seems, the last 8 packs yielded 5 more mythics rares, including a Sorin, Solemn Visitor of my own to my great pleasure. I also grabbed a Wingmate Roc, a very strong looking Mythic that looks like it will be good fun to play.

With all of my boosters opened and with some cards already earmarked for resale (read: fetchlands) I set about considering the set as a whole. It has a strong 3 colour scheme and this was something I hadn't come across before. I had invested quite heavily in the Return to Ravnica block, especially Dragon's Maze so had experienced a multi-colour focused block before but three colours was a new thing. I have been considering what i should play and what I should build from these cards, and was immediately drawn towards Abzan based on a number of the cards I had pulled (including Sorin). Also there were some really fun looking cards that were Blue/Green (not colours I normally play) so there may well be something for Sultai and Temur brewing away in the back of my mind. The fact that I then acquired a playset of Sagu Mauler may also have boosted these colours for me too ;)

All in all I am looking forward to getting my teeth into building a new Standard deck focusing on Khans or Tarkir. I certainly have some cards that I am not using from the Theros block that could slip nicely into an Abzan deck, and I am very much looking forward to brewing something up and seeing how it does. I'll hopefully get a decklist up in the next week or so.

Second Taste of the Tournament Cherry

Its been a couple of weeks since I last wrote again and lots has been going on gaming wise. I hope to get a couple more posts written this week detailing what I have been up to, and what with, but for this post I want to talk about my second experience of playing in a Magic:the Gathering tournament. It has been over a week since the tournament, so the experience isn't as fresh in my mind as I would have liked it to be, so please forgive the lack of detail on some of the matches.

This tournament once again took place at Nebula Custom gaming in Walsall, on Saturday the 27th of September, and was a casual tournament, meaning that the metagame would be wide open to all sorts of different decks, both in power level and in style. I wracked my brains for a week or so before the tournament wondering what deck to play in this event, and even had a stab at building a new Soldier deck in White/Red but did not get enough chance to play test it before the day of the tournament. In the end I decided to go with what I know was decent and reasonably fast (learning from my last experience) and went with my Hellcow's Hammer deck.

My first round match up was against Kate, who was playing an Elf deck. this was the first time I had met Kate and so I didn't know what to expect from her deck. The first game got underway and I got very lucky on my draw, with a great hand coming together in my first seven. We both played lands for a our first turn and second turn. This allowed me to start getting minotaurs out early on and they started to swing for damage straight away. Kate was playing a deck which allowed for a decent amount of lifegain, so whilst I kept on swinging in for damage, she was able to bring her total back up some to mitigate this effect. However, her elves were unable to put much of a dent in the minotaurs that were building on my side of the board, and once I hate got a pair of Rageblood Shamans and a Kragma Warcaller out to boost my creatures I was able to swing in for 21 damage in one attack ending this game.

The second game was much closer than the first, with the minotaurs not coming out as quickly as the first hand, and the elves getting off to a better start. However, the stronger minotaur creatures, and the judicious use of Doomblade, were able to swing things in my favour and I finished up the match 2-0.

The second round brought me up against Rich, one of Nebula's Co-owners. He was playing an Izzet-based Red/Blue deck with a lot of Instants and Sorceries which inspired his Nivix Cyclops' to fly (yep) over and hit hard. The first hand got of to a great start for me and a bad one for Rich, as I got a minotaur out on turn 2 and was able to start causing damage from turn three. Rich however, was stuck mana-screwed and unable to do anything, discarding cards for the 2nd and 3rd turns. By the time he got anything out is was pretty much over and I won the first game. The second match was a whole other story. This time I struggled for mana, and when I did get creatures out they fell foul of Rich's spells, which in turn powered up his Cyclops. This one was a short, brutal and in my case lethal game, tying it at 1-1 going into a decider.

The deciding round was the best game I played in the whole tournament, with blows being traded on both sides, and the pendulum swinging back and fourth several times, before I  was lucky enough to get a Kragma Warcaller out and keep him out, whilst using two minotaur tokens from Flurry of Horns to swing in for enough damage to seal the game and the match. I was left on 2 life in this game and it was a real close call, but I had really enjoyed it.

This brought up the third and final round. I was one of two players who had won their opening 2 matches, and this brought me face to face with Duncan and his mono-black Vampires deck. I had seen how he had chewed through his other opponents and I knew I needed to be very fast to beat him. the first game didn't bode well as he managed to get vampires out quickly, and I was stuck with my ground pounding and somewhat slower to cast minotaurs. What is worse is that as the Vampires were mono-black, my Doomblades were worthless in this game. We both swung in aggressively, with Duncan knowing I couldn't block his fliers and me knowing that there was little point holding my forces back. However, his vampires were also providing him with copious amounts of Lifegain, meaning all I was really doing was stopping his life from building up too fast! The inevitable happened and I lost the opening game.

The second game brought my sideboard into play, and out went the Doomblades, to be replaced by Dark Betrayal, and Drown in Sorrow came in for Sinister Possession. I was determined to try and give a better showing formyself this hand... However my opening hand really let me down and I had to mulligan down to 6 cards. This gave me a mono-red hand with a decent amount of burn and mana. Hoping this would prove enough to keep me in it until my minotaurs came out of the deck I went with it. Duncan's vampires quickly established a decent board presence (although my Searing Bloods proved useful at removing one or two of his really big threats), and I traded burn spells to his creature damage, reducing his life total as he hit mine. Unfortunately, I quickly ran out of spells and was reliant on topdecking creatures... and the only ones I was able to pull was the ever reliant Kragma Warcaller, who proved too expensive to cast. Duncan quickly finished me off and left me defeated 0-2.

With this defeat in the final round I ended up placing 3rd overall: not too bad considering my 7th place in the last tournament, and also left me with a healthy respect for Vampire decks!

At the end of the afternoon I placed an order with Nebula for a booster box of the new Khans of Tarkir set.This is my first ever time buying a booster box just for myself, and I am looking forward to what I get from it (more on that in the next post!).